Disciplines for Life/Prayer: Direct Dial to Heaven

From Gospel Translations

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My wife Nancy and I are well known among our friends for the amount of time we spend talking. We don’t do it because someone at a marriage seminar told us to. We do it because we love conversation with each other. It’s been that way for seventeen years now and began long before we were married. Hardly a day goes by without some time of stimulating, usually intimate, discussion.

As I write this, Nancy has the flu. She’s been sick for about ten days now. Five days ago she lost her voice. She can’t talk beyond a whisper, and when she does whisper, it causes a painful cough.

Last night we sat on the couch after the children were in bed—a typical time to talk—and both of us ended up frustrated. She whispered, “Tell me what’s been on your mind.” So I told her. It took three minutes. She wanted to respond with a question or some thoughts of her own, but the coughing wouldn’t allow it. We ended up reading the newspaper.

Our love and commitment for each other haven’t diminished through Nancy’s illness, but we miss the inti- macy of conversation. Our relationship with God is the same. We can have a commitment to him without an intimate relationship with him. But if we want our relationship to grow, we must converse. The Bible calls such conversation with God prayer. Without this conversation our experience with God becomes similar to what Nancy and I have gone through during her bout with the flu: we love each other, but our lack of communication creates a sense of distance.

Still, we can’t take our love for granted and ignore prayer. With the distance of non-communication, love can be tempted to wane. Ask anyone who’s been through a marital crisis. So prayer is essential to our life with God.

Prayer is perhaps the simplest yet most profound of the spiritual disciplines. When we pray, we are simply communicating with God. No exotic spiritual hoopla, no mystical rituals—just dialogue. And yet it’s a dialogue with the exalted Lord of the universe. We have the amazing privilege of speaking directly to Almighty God! More remarkable still is the fact that he listens, and speaks to us in turn.

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